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Something to Say with Keith Newbery: ‘Cold as the Himalayas!’
SIAN LLOYD wafted her left hand seductively over the weather map and a swathe of middle Britain, from Anglesey to The Wash, was winsomely caressed.
This familiar gesture somehow softened a chart that looked bleak and ominous.
Snow symbols were sprinkled hither and thither, minus numbers were everywhere and a high pressure - blue, glacial and forbidding - was nudging in off the North Sea. Sian gazed gravely at the camera, smiled sadly in that school-marmish way of hers, and said: “Please remember to wrap up warm.”
The warning came just in time. People about to venture out into the freezing February night in shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops stopped in their tracks.
They adjusted their knotted hankies, stopped packing the picnic basket and removed their designer sun-glasses.
Where would they be without the likes of the kindly, caring Sian and her sensible advice? Hypothermic in a remote ditch, that’s where.
There must be a previously-unsuspected clause in the Met Office contract which calls upon some female presenters to moonlight as nannies or social workers.
This obliges them to translate basic details about temperature, wind direction, precipitation and the proliferation or otherwise of the cumulonimbus (which is all we really need to know) into a counselling session.
They frown at our concern as the mercury falls through the bottom of the thermometer and owners of Vauxhall Corsas suddenly decide six inches of snow present the ideal conditions in which to drive from Kent to Cumbria to visit their elderly mothers.
They smile at our anticipation as the weather map is covered in cheerful solar symbols and we are all urged to ‘slap on the factor 50’ and abandon offices and factories for a day at the cricket or on the beach.
Once there we will no doubt study newspaper headlines, in which the English weather cannot be understood by the English people unless it is subjected to a geographical comparison.
‘Hotter than the Costa del Sol!’ (the exclamation mark is obligatory) is a few degrees more ambrosial than ‘Warmer than Greece!’ but nowhere near as scorching as ‘Sahara so good!’
My favourite so far this winter? ‘Cold as the Himalayas!’
But knowing the yeti and the sherpas are suffering just as much is of scant consolation.
..........................
KARL LAGERFELD is a ‘fashion guru.’ That’s the name given to someone who thinks they know how the rest of us should dress.
The qualifications for the role appear to be a big mouth, a small mind and a willingness to wear clothes which look avant garde on young men, but distinctly weird on those well into their 79th year.
He’s a man who barely registered on my personal radar, until he started criticising Adele for being ‘too fat.’
This woman is the finest pop chanteuse to grace these islands since Dusty Springfield – and her physical dimensions should be as irrelevant to the rest of us as they are to her.
Karl Lagerfeld - nice botox, shame about the ego.
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Weather for Eastbourne
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South west
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